Bradley Wiggins survives a multitude of attacks on the final climb to Les Gets

Christophe Kern (Europcar) won the fifth stage of the Critérium du Dauphiné between Parc des Oiseaux – Villars-les-Dombes and Les Gets as the race hit the Alps once more. The Frenchman attacked the rest of a breakaway group in the final kilometres of the climb to the finish and held on to take the victory just seven seconds ahead of a pursuing Chris Anker Sørensen (Saxo Bank-SunGard), with French champion Thomas Voeckler, Kern’s Europcar teammate, leading the group of favourites over just two seconds behind him.

“I attacked with three kilometres to go, knowing that even if I was going to get caught, Thomas [Voeckler] was one of the fastest sprinters for the stage win,” said Kern after the stage. “I wanted to go as far as I could.

“It’s super to win here today because the Dauphiné is a big race and this is a mountain stage,” he continued. “I got close two years ago at the Tour de France in Arcalis. I tried again on stage one here on Monday but I got caught with 800 metres to go. [Europcar team manager] Jean-René [Bernaudeau] encouraged me loudly.

“I’m very happy for the whole Europcar team” he added. “We’ve done a great job today. The atmosphere in the team is fantastic. I had a knee injury at the beginning of the year and I came back nicely to my best level. Three weeks before the Tour de France, this is my best win ever so far.”

After a relatively easy flat stage, the Dauphiné headed towards the Alps once more for the first of three mountain stages. The peloton was to ascend three 2nd category climbs in the 210km stage; the Côte de Corlier, the Côte du Mont des Princes, and the Monte des Gets at the finish.

Having taken the race lead in the stage three time trial, Bradley Wiggins (Team Sky) would doubtless be forced to deal with a multitude of attacks from his overall classification rivals.

Gatis Smukulis (HTC-Highroad), Lieuwe Westra (Vacansoleil-DCM) and Joost Posthuma (Leopard Trek) tried to get away in the first few kilometres, but the peloton was in no mood to let them get away so soon. Mountains jersey leader Leonardo Duque (Cofidis) was the next to try his luck, but he couldn’t get away either, and after 20km the peloton was all still together.

Having said he would do so before the stage, Les Gets local Mickaël Buffaz (Cofidis) attacked at this point, in the company of Amets Txurruka (Euskaltel-Euskadi); they too though, were to find that the peloton was not allowing anybody to escape at this stage.

Duque led over the top of the Côte de Corlier after 45.5km, at the head of the still-complete peloton. The only riders leaving the bunch were those going out the back, including sprinters Tyler Farrar (Garmin-Cervélo) and Juan Jose Haedo (Saxo Bank-SunGard).

Such was the speed of the peloton that it managed to cover 45.9km in the first hour, which included the Côte de Corlier. The second hour, which was mostly either downhill or flat, was raced at an even quicker pace, as Thibaut Pinot (FDJ), Pierre Rolland (Europcar), Rémy Di Gregorio (Astana), and Sébastien Joly (Saur-Sojasun), Maciej Paterski (Liquigas-Cannondale), Pablo Urtasun (Euskaltel-Euskadi), Mikhail Ignatyev (Katusha) and Frederik Veuchelen (Vacansoleil-DCM) all found to their cost; an average of 50.2kph meant that none of these attempted breakaways was able to get clear.

At the 96km point, as the peloton approached the feedzone, it finally relaxed and allowed Jason McCartney (RadioShack) to escape. Nobody went with the American but, unperturbed, he set off on his own; by the 100km point he led by 2’40” and, as he sat in 163rd place overall, more than 23 minutes behind race leader Wiggins, his advantage continued to grow.

Over the top of the 2nd category Côte du Mont des Princes, after 109km, McCartney led by 6’30”; with apparent relaxation taking over in the previously speedy peloton, his advantage reached a maximum of 12’30” at the 135km point.

The lone American, whose sole professional victory came from a similar lone breakaway in the 2007 Vuelta a España, still had 85km to race though, including the final climb to the finish in Les Gets.

It was no Wiggins’ Sty team that increased the speed of the peloton at this stage, but Katusha, on behalf of last year’s WorldTour winner Joaquim Rodriguez.

By the 50km to go point, Katusha had brought McCartney’s lead down to 7’50”, but 10km later, as the Russian team eased off and slipped back into the peloton, his lead stabilised at around seven minutes; with 35km to go it was still 6’45” and, had he got some others for company he would have had a good chance to make it to the finish.

Garmin-Cervélo began to move forward to help the Sky team, which was not worried about chasing, but with 25km to go the Europcar took over and the speed of the peloton increased considerably.

With 20km to go, disaster struck in the peloton as a crash brought down a number of riders, including AG2R La Mondiale leader Nicolas Roche. The Irishman, who started the day 16th overall, just 3’26” down, took a while to compose himself and appeared to change his helmet, but he remounted and carried on; the shorts on his right leg completely ripped open.

Andy Cappelle (Quick Step) was not so lucky though and stayed down; he abandoned the race and was taken to hospital.

Roche immediately consulted the race doctor’s car; he continued the stage, but his competitive race was over and he was nursed to the finish by teammates Sébastien Hinault and Mathieu Perget.

Meanwhile, at the front of the peloton, Europcar continued to set the pace; reducing the deficit to McCartney to 2’42” by the 15km to go point.

At the village of Taninges at the base of the climb to Les Gets, the lone American was visibly tiring and his lead was down to less than a minute and a half. BMC Racing came to the front, but with 10km to go stage three winner Tony Martin (HTC-Highroad) attacked, and was joined by attacker from early in the stage Paterski and Rolland.

Duque was dropped almost as soon as the road tilted upwards but the Colombian sprinter had done more than enough to hold on to his polka-dot mountain jersey.

McCartney was now in sight, just 48 seconds ahead of the peloton, with the three chasers in between; they made short work of pulling him back and breezed straight past as his tired legs struggled against the gradient.

Carlos Barredo (Rabobank) attacked in pursuit of the three leaders, taking a number others with him. Martin, Paterski and Rolland were a short ten seconds ahead of the peloton, with Spaniard’s group just ahead of it.

Team Sky was back on the front of the peloton now, with British champion Geraint Thomas leading, but, with none of the breakaways any danger to Wiggins’ lead, there was no panic.

Pierrick Fédrigo (FDJ) was the next to launch a move, followed by Sergio Paulinho (RadioShack) and Oliver Zaugg (Leopard Trek), just as Barredo’s group joined the leaders. The three of them made short work of closing the gap to the front, forming one big group at the head of the race with 7’5km to go, but Team Sky was still not panicking

As soon as the group came together Zaugg went straight over the top; he was 7.2km from the top but looked strong and appeared to have timed his move well.

Behind him, Kern had jumped across to the lead group and was now in pursuit, along with Rolland, Martin, Garate and David Lopez (Movistar), who had also jumped ahead on his own.

Back in the peloton, the overall classification men finally began to attack Wiggins, as Joaquim Rodriguez latched on to a move from Rein Taaramäe. Voeckler followed, but Wiggins was right on his tail.

At the front Zaugg was caught by the chasers.

Jurgen Van Den Broeck (Omega Pharma-Lotto) was the next to move, again followed by Rodriguez, but Wiggins was there again; Rodriguez countered once more, but the rest of the favourites stuck to him.

Alexandre Vinokourov (Astana), starting the day in fourth place, had a go himself but once again the rest were on him and he was unable to get clear.

Up ahead though, Kern’s attack was more successful and he was now making his way up to the finish alone.

Dan Martin (Garmin-Cervélo) attacked next, and briefly got clear, just as the peloton shot past his namesake Tony Martin, who had dropped from the breakaway ahead. Vinokourov tried again, but all the constant attacks were doing was to pull the ever-shrinking group of leaders up towards the lone Kern. All of the other escapees had been caught and passed now, and the Europcar was almost in sight.

Inside the last two kilometres Sørensen managed to tear himself clear of the favourites and set off in pursuit of Kern. Voeckler was right on his wheel but, as a teammate of Kern’s he was doing nothing to assist the Danish rider.

As Kern passed under the flamme rouge with one kilometre to go he had just eight seconds over the Wiggins group, with Sørensen and Voekler in between. Despite the French champion doing no work Sørensen managed to drop him as he moved into the final kilometre himself, but was making no progress on Kern up front.

Kern had plenty of time to sit up and take the biggest victory of his career, with Sørensen just ahead of the Voeckler led group.

After all the attacks on the final climb Wiggins finished comfortably in the group with Voeckler; the only change at the top of the overall standings is that of fifth place Rui Costa (Movistar), who finished 19 seconds behind Kern, and lost 10 seconds to Wiggins.

Having survived stage five, the Briton has two more mountain finishers to get through as he bids to take the biggest stage race victory of his career.